Ainol Novo 7 Aurora II dual core tablet launching late June or early July [Update]

That’s a big name but with such high-end specs at such a low price, it’s worth it. The tablet is the second device in its series following up from the Aurora I which isn’t as fast as the Aurora II (Obviously!) as the Aurora I features a MIPS processor which was so weak that some apps refused to run on the device. Although at $110, that’s exactly what you’d expect.

However, the Aurora II packs some really good specs. It runs 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel IPS display, a 1.5 GHz Amlogic ARM Cortex-A9 dual core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of storage. It also runs on the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS and a 5-inch capacitive touchscreen. The tablet will have a 2MP front-facing camera, a G-Sensor, 802.11 nWiFi, and microSD card slot. Ainol Novo have released a number of tablets since the Aurora I but this beats any previous release.

Notebook Italia report that the tablet will go on sale for $190 which is lower than any device with similar specs.Ainol will also have another tablet ready for release along with the Aurora II called the Elf II which will have most of the features mentioned about except for the IPS display.

Update:According to a press release issued yesterday by UPlaytablet, Ainol’s new model of NOVO 7 ELF and NOVO 7 Aurora, aka Aurora II and ELF II, is pushed out to end of June or beginning of July. Read all the details in the press release below.

May 08, 2012, San Jose, CA, USA: The release date of Ainol’s new model of NOVO 7 ELF and NOVO 7 Aurora, aka Aurora II and ELF II, is pushed out to end of June or beginning of July. In order to meet the customer demand on Aurora, the Aurora production has resumed, but no more ELF will be made due to the high defective rate on its high resolution screen.

Ainol’s NOVO 7 ELF and NOVO 7 Aurora tablets became very hot after NOVO 7 tablet won the 2nd place of “Best Tablet Award” on CES in January this year. However, in March 2012 Ainol has to stop the production of Aurora and ELF due to short supply of IPS screen on Aurora and high definition screen on ELF. On April 9, we reported that Ainol is working on a new generation of Aurora and ELF that will be powered by AmLogic’s due-core ARM 9 based CPU, and the target release date is beginning of May.

We had a meeting with Chevy Wu, Ainol’s GM of International Business, last night on May 8. Unfortunately Ainol has to push out the release date of Aurora II and ELF II to end of June or beginning of July. According to Chevy, “There are lots of work, since we are changing the the platform. We have finished both hardware and software design for the new generation of Aurora and ELF powered by due-core CPU, but we met some problems at the end, which force us to postpone the release by about one and a half months”. Once again Wu confirmed that Ainol has changed the IPS screen supplier and also upgraded the CPU to AmLogic’s due-core CPU on Aurora (Aurora II)”.

Considering the the delay of Aurora II and ELF II and also to meet the high demand of Aurora from customers Ainol decided to resume the production of Aurora. “The IPS screen supply is now under the control. We are also doing our best to ensure the quality of those IPS screens is good”. In addition, Ainol is going to release English version of Aurora next week, which will include English language and apps on the tablet, English package box, and English manual. As Ainol’s oversea distributor, uPlay Tablet will get those English version of Aurora in their first shipment next week.

As for ELF, Wu said “Ainol has decided to end the production of ELF due to the high defective rate on its high resolution screen”. Customers who are looking for ELF have to either wait for ELF II or another new model that they are going to release in end of May.

Regarding to the new models, Wu said “Ainol is going to release two models running AMLogic single-core CPU (not the due-core CPU that will be used on Aurora II and ELF II), one with 1024×600 pixel screen, called NOVO 7 Mars, and another one with 800×480 pixel screen, called NOVO 7 Tornados. Those two models will be the low end models by Ainol”. The price of those two new models is not finalized according to Wu.

As Ainol’s oversea distributor, uPlay Tablet, is taking pre-orders on the English version of Aurora that will be shipping next week. For customers who pre-ordered Aurora or Aurora II from us but not shipped, we offer three options: 1). keep the order. We will ship the English version of Aurora (black color) next week. 2). keep the order, get free upgrade to the new Aurora II when they are released in beginning of July. 3). Cancel the order and get full refund.

For customers who pre-ordered ELF or ELF II from us but not shipped, we also offer three options: 1). Pay extra $20 to upgrade to the English version of Aurora (black color) that we are going to ship next week. 2). keep the order, get free upgrade to the new ELF II when they are released in beginning of July. 3). Cancel the order and get full refund.

We will email all of customers placed pre-order today and tomorrow, so make sure you check your emails and let us know your choice.

For customers who want to buy the English Aurora, you can pre-order it now at the current Aurora product page. We are not going to take any pre-order of Aurora II and ELF II for now (since the release date is still more than one month from now), and will start taking pre-order in June. The English version of Auroa production is limited; therefore, we recommend our customers to place the pre-order now in order to secure their priority.

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